A Blessing

May our hearts feel the song of the meadowlark, our minds the clearness of the mountain air, and our souls the freedom of the soaring eagle. 

May our faith be renewed as the creek in spring, may we celebrate the saving redemption of the Cross in all its mysteries, may we always feel the love of the community of Christ. From service bulletin Chapel of the Transfiguration. 

We attended church at the Chapel of the Transfiguration in Grand Teton NP. The church is owned by St. John's Jackson. They have chaplains come in for one month stints in the summer. Our priest was on his final Sunday before heading back to Baton Rouge, LA. It was a packed house and a nice service. We sang three very familiar hymns. The sermon had a good message about letting go of old and embracing new. 

Here is an item at the little "country store" at the old Menor's ferry landing. It reminds me of our good friend and Dan's old classmate, Carolyn, who still sells Rawleigh products. 

We took another bike ride on the wonderful paved multi-use path. The sign below was at the beginning of the path:

Why do we have to sacrifice a child to get a safe pathway built?

jb

I did not have enough internet to load last evening so posted Monday morning. 

From Laurance S Rockefeller Preserve

"The path to wisdom invites us to walk with a humble heart, recognizing the dance between diversity and unity, action and restraint. "

Our trail head to go to Phelps Lake. 

A beautiful modern facility. 

We hiked a 7 mile loop around the lake. Lots of other hikers and many swimmers. I found a few of these: 

I would be admitting to a crime if I said I sampled them, so no confession here. :-)

The next 3 pictures- a close-up of a mosaic in the visitor center, a picture from further away then a picture from our hike. 

It is a beautiful place. 

Peace be with you. 

jb

Guess where we are...

Grand Teton Nat'l Park. We arrived this morning after a few days exploring some nearby territory- upper Green River, Hoback River. We woke to a chilly 34 degrees. Thank goodness for the wool blanket. 

I have been here a couple times before but both times it was treated like a "side dish" to Yellowstone. So this time we are going to give it the "main course" treatment. 

Camp is set up at Gros Ventre campground. Pronounced sort of like "grow vaunt" I don't do well with French, to say the least. 

Bison crossing in front of us, this is Dan's picture. Here is mine, I went for the "grand" background. 

Our book "10 Best Everything in Nat'l Parks" rates Grand Teton for bike riding, and they are correct. We need to adjust to this elevation so this afternoon we took a little 12 mile ride between Moose and Jenny Lake. We hope to do some hikes and more cycling. 

Things that make you go, hmm. 

So why do you think they made this phone booth so short? Are there lots of short people without cell phones in Wyoming? 

A Day at Lava Hot Springs

This is a unique little Idaho town. We arrived late Monday morning. We camped next to the Portneuf River, running through the middle of town filled with happy tubers.

We left the squeals and giggles for others and instead took several long soaks in the hot spring pools run by the city. 

The best part of our stay here was that we were joined by our good friends, Mark and Cathy, as they were traveling back to the Willamette valley from Colorado. 

They are driving all of the way home 750+ miles in one day! I can't imagine doing  that. I am glad they have the energy. It was great to have them with us for a few hours. After they left we took another soak in the spings and a wander thru town. The next pictures are from the walk...

This big guy was hanging out in the pool parking lot, I assume waiting for his 2 legged friend. I have not encountered many dogs in shades before. 

The above 2 pics are of a free hot spring along the river just up from camp. It looks pleasant enough but the $5 entrance to the city facility was okay by us. 

Here is the Main Street of this little berg. A good place to add to your "bucket list" is you are making one. 

Now it is time to hit the road. No definite destination, but we hope to see some of western Wyoming for the next few days. 

Happy Trails to all, until we meet again.

 

Finished up the Care-a-vanner work.

Here is our crew of Care-a-Vanners. The gentleman on the right is Steve Zeman, who is the building supervisor. Similar to my last post I can list a batch of new construction experiences. The last 4 days we worked on siding at a new home. 

The outer white "stuff" on the window is called "J channel". I had the task of fitting and installing it on all of the windows of the house. It's purpose is to hide all of the ends and edges of the vinyl siding. When I finished with that, kind of a solo task, I worked with others putting the siding on. 

Dan attaching siding. 

The last few days of work flew by with several fun feasts. Carmen, who is the future owner of the home where we did the siding work, made 2 meals for us. She brought tacos for lunch Saturday and delivered pesole with toppings to us for dinner. Friday evening Steve invited us and a couple of his key local volunteers and their wives to his home for barbecue. We all brought side dishes and Steve cooked chicken, pork and brats. Mmmmm! They have an awesome yard and garden including ripe raspberries we picked to add to dessert! It was a fun evening getting to visit & get to know about each other's non-work life. Those conversations are when the "small world" discoveries happen. I think Tommie (one of the Care-a-Vanners) went to jr high with a guy who explored caves in Mexico with Steve back in the 70's. I discovered Rick, one of the local volunteers, has a nephew at Regis High in Stayton, Oregon, where my brother is the new principal. Yes it's a small small world. 

So anyway, it was a fun and satisfying couple weeks. Now we setting off to see the  country. Today we are traveling SE of IF along the Snake River. We are encountering several bicyclists on the road. I am pretty sure they are the crew of Bike and Builders who will spend the next couple days painting with Steve. We hope to find a cool mountain camp site within a couple hours of driving. Our destination tomorrow will be Lava Hot Springs. 

So long for now reader. jb

Working Hard for Habitat in Idaho Falls

We arrived in Idaho Falls on Monday the 7th and settled in at the Shady Rest Campground. We have the camper off of the truck so camp stays put while we use the truck around town. We are here under an umbrella organization called Care-a-Vanners. We are a sort of subset of Habitat for Humanity. There are two other couples one from Arizona and one from California also here to volunteer for a couple weeks. 

We are often asked what we usually do when we work for Habitat. But, there just does not seem to be a "usual". Our first day we shoveled gravel and did some minor repairs at a couple finished and lived in homes. I painted sandy tread paint on a ramp for 8 yr old twins who are wheel chair bound. Dan painted stain on the handrails of their neighbor's house. 

Here is where we are probably working the rest of our time here. We are helping rehab a 1940's home. Most of the gutting was done but there was one room which had been left in touched that needed quite a bit of work. It is an old carport that was turned into a garage that was turned into a bedroom. The next few pictures are from our work in there. 

This morning before the heat set in Dan and I got harnessed up and helped tear off the roof on a little back room on the house. 

This evening we are going out to dinner with our fellow workers. We will try a Mexican restaurant called Lupita's, it was recommended by the locals. In the mean time I am going to get my sewing machine out and get a bit of quilting done. 

I am feeling the good kind of tired. I hope whatever you have done with your week brings satisfaction to you. jb

A Wheely & Thready Day

Saturday was a wonderfully normal day. In the morning I got out my feather weight sewing machine and sewed and trimmed about 50 sub-units of a quilt. 

Next activity was a little bike ride with the Sawtooth Mountains as a back drop. Followed by a scenic drive back to camp. 

We then cleaned up in our handy outdoor shower. Clean does feel great! 

Next task was playing barber...

Afterwards I got back to another batch of quilt squares. Dan was chef for the night, so the day finished with popcorn dinner. I read a couple chapters in my book and before it was even dark I was so tuckered out, I went to sleep. 

Today we traveled part way to Idaho Fallls. We are staying tonight below the beautiful Mt Borah and the Lost Mountains. Tomorrow we catch up with some other "Care--Vanners" to work on some Habitat for Humanity projects for a couple weeks. More about that in another post. 

Blessings to you reader...isn't it grand when just normal is just wonderful?!

Popping up in Stanley ID

Evening view from our camp on the Salmon Ruver near Stanley. There is no service there so not much of a post. Heading off to raft on Independence Day. 

Settling in to Road Life

Yesterday we traveled to the Deshutes River Recreation Area. Really just a campground off of I84, where the Deschutes River meets the Columbia. We spent several pleasant hours relaxing, napping, reading & quilting in the shade of some large poplar trees near the river. 

One of my expectations for this trip is to connect with some of our roots and family heritage. This morning I realized part of the time I will just need to open my eyes and unlock some memories. 

This bit of the Columbia Gorge holds some family legacy. In the 50s, around the time of my birth my father, H. Scott Coulter, had a significant hand in the design of this section of the freeway. The challenges were many. They needed to squeeze a freeway, a secondary highway and 2 railroads in where a lake was soon to bury a huge waterfall on the mighty Columbia. The fishing folk of Celilo got the short straw in this event along with all of us who will never see those falls. Of course Dad did not have anything to do with the decision to build the dam. His role was to make a safe and esthetic highway. 

Here are the falls we won't ever see, borrowed from somewhere on the www. 

We took a little bike ride trying to do better with the fitness "stuff". A beautiful heron watched us pass. 

Happy journeys everyone, even if just to your own back yard. jb